How Call Centers and Telemarketers Can Benefit from Ringless Voicemail

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Ringless voicemail marketing is a technology that allows delivery of a voicemail message directly to a voice mailbox with no call being made.

Ringless voicemail works only with mobile phone numbers. You can’t use the technology with landlines. Because there are no calls, customers do not incur per call or per minute charges. They can listen to messages for free. Also, since the call goes directly to voicemail, the probability of irritating a customer is much lower compared to a call.

Currently in the United States, leaving a ringless voicemail to any number is perfectly legal. This may change in the future. However, even if it does, you will most likely still be able to use ringless voicemail with customers who you have a prior relationship with, which means a lot of opportunity for additional sales.

Why You Should Use Ringless Voicemail

Your customers or prospects will buy from you when all three of the following happen at the same time:

They have a need or a want for a product or service that you are selling

They have money to spend

They have a reason to buy now

As a marketer, you only have a direct impact on giving people reasons to buy now. While good sales people and telemarketers can be very persuasive and influential, fundamentally there&rsquo;s nothing they can do if someone doesn&rsquo;t need their product. For example, selling air conditioners to customers in snowy northern US states and Canada is going to be a challenge no matter how good of a sales person you are.

There&rsquo;s also nothing you can do about people having or not having money. You can significantly improve your sales conversions if you are offering payment plans, installments, and financing, but if someone has no money and no access to credit, they will not be able to buy.

Having great offers that make people want to buy now is the only one factor that you have control over.

The issue with telemarketing is that you may have great scripts and great reasons to buy now, but the timing for customers and prospects may be really bad. Someone may pick up the phone, yet be in the middle of an important conversation and hang up the phone once they realize that someone is trying to sell them something. The need or want is not there at this specific moment. You can&rsquo;t leave a regular voicemail right away because the prospect just hung up on you. If you call right away the second time, you may get a chance to leave a voicemail, but the prospect will know that it is from you and may delete it right away. The best way to go if you can&rsquo;t get the result you want when talking to someone or when you can&rsquo;t reach someone on the phone is to leave a ringless voicemail.

The customer will check the voicemail when he or she has time. Since it is the customer who chooses when to check the voicemail, you know that your ringless voicemail will not interrupt or irritate them. Because of this, the chances of getting the recipient of the message to act are very high.

Ways to Use Ringless Voicemail

Segment your list and create personalized follow-up messages

One of the best ways to use ringless voicemail is to segment your customer database and create personalized messages depending on the situation and your goals. For example, you may know that your conversion is the highest if you get a person on the phone and talk to them. However, if you try reaching them several times and don&rsquo;t succeed, it may be the time to leave a ringless voicemail. Because you can leave a ringless voicemail, you can decide on how long of a gap you want to have between the voicemail and the call. If you want the customer to immediately recognize that the voicemail is from you, make the gap short. If you think that it would be better to evoke curiosity about who is calling and why, make the gap long.

Inform customers about special offers

You may have a lot of sales and promotions going on but calling your customers with this information may feel intrusive. With ringless voicemail, you know that the call will go straight to voicemail and not interrupt the customer. For this reason, you can treat ringless voicemail the way you would treat an email blast. It is a great way to send news about what is happening. The customer will listen to the message when he or she has time and will not have to talk to anybody, which means that your message will be perceived very differently than a regular call.

Send reminders

Sending reminders via ringless voicemail could significantly increase show-up rates for events and appointments. A ringless voicemail is a very non-intrusive way to send a reminder. If you are working with dental offices, chiropractors and other medical practices, you could start using ringless voicemail to make their businesses work more effectively.

Send updates and get lost customers back

For many businesses and organizations, there can be a lot of value in marketing to lost customers. Calling someone to ask them why they stopped buying may feel awkward and inappropriate. With ringless voicemail you can leave a friendly message: &ldquo;Hi, this is John from ABC. I was going through our records and noticed that you bought A, B, and C. I was calling to let you know that right now we have a special promotion for D, E, F. We&rsquo;d love to have you back and as a token of appreciation you will get a surprise free gift valued at $X if you stop by our store between dates X and Y.&rdquo;

Educate your customers on auto-pilot

Educating customers and prospects is one of the best ways to build trust and authority. One of the reasons why people do what doctors tell them is that there&rsquo;s diagnostics, gathering of information, education and a process. You can use ringless voicemail to create a similar process. For example, you may have established that your sales conversions go up if your customers know certain things about your products or services before then get on a call with a telemarketer. You can use this fact and promise your prospects that they will get an educational call from someone with no sales pitch whatsoever. Then, you can schedule educational ringless voicemail drops to go out before your telemarketers get on the phone with prospects. This way you will &ldquo;warm up&rdquo; your prospects, give them the information they need without having them to talk to anyone and make the job of your telemarketers easier.